WHEREAS, on June 26, 2002, the City Council approved Resolution 36080, authorizing the Office of the Mayor to develop a process for streamlining and updating the City’s regulations for building and land development, and improving the procedures and customer services for these regulations; and,

WHEREAS, the Office of the Mayor has conducted a series of meetings and workshops with city bureaus and stakeholders to receive comments and concerns on the City’s regulatory process for buildings and land development; and,

WHEREAS, after considering the input from these meetings and workshops, the Office of the Mayor has prepared the FY 2002-2003 Initial Regulatory Improvement Workplan for the City Council’s consideration, containing a number of recommendations; and,

WHEREAS, certain provisions of the initial Workplan require City Council authorization to implement;

WHEREAS, a final Workplan will be submitted for the City Council’s consideration by November 13, 2002;

POLICY

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the City of Portland that the following actions occur:

A. The Office of the Mayor is authorized to review existing inter-agency agreements between City bureaus regarding procedures for permit routing and approval. City bureaus are directed to work with the Office of the Mayor in revising existing agreements to eliminate procedures that delay processing and review of applications for permits and development. City bureaus are also directed to work with the Office of the Mayor to review and revise the process of how regulations are developed and modified on an inter-agency basis, to achieve better coordination of the City’s regulatory process;

B. City bureaus are directed to present for City Council consideration each fiscal year a Regulatory Improvement Workplan to improve City regulations, regulatory procedures and related customer services. Each annual Workplan shall include a detailed Regulatory Code Improvement List (ReCIL) for amending existing regulations and adopting new regulations. The annual workplan also shall include a Regulatory Process and Service Improvement Plan (RiPSIP) detailing how regulatory-related procedures and customer services will be improved. The Workplan shall be developed using a process for receiving and considering public input. The Workplan shall be submitted for City Council consideration and approval, coinciding with but separate from the annual consideration of the City’s budget;

C. The Office of the Mayor shall convene a Strategic Development Opportunity Team (SDOT). The Strategic Development Opportunity Team will consist of representatives from the Portland Development Commission and City bureaus involved in land use or building code regulations. The SDOT shall address specific building permit and land use opportunities related to difficult and strategic development sites. The SDOT also will identify major policy issues requiring either further consideration by the City Council or by the bureaus responsible for particular policy areas affecting such difficult development sites;

D. The Office of Management and Finance is directed to create a process for developing and considering regulatory impact statements to be used by the City when amending existing regulations or adopting new regulations. Such process shall include a cost/benefit analysis to evaluate the relative costs, benefits and impacts, both externally and internally, of regulatory decisions under the new or amended regulations;

E. The Planning Bureau, the Office of Planning and Development Review and other city agencies are directed to examine current regulations to identify threshold triggers that disproportionately affect small businesses. City bureaus are directed to revise the threshold levels identified in the FY 2002-2003 Initial Regulatory Improvement Workplan, either by initiating administrative rulemaking or by submitting ordinances to the Council for code amendments. City bureaus are further directed to develop procedures for automatic inflationary adjustments to development thresholds for building and land development regulations, to be included in either administrative rules or city code;

F. The Office of the Mayor shall work with the Office of Management and Finance and affected bureaus to prepare ordinances amending the City Code for development projects of $100 million or greater in value generating 500 or more living wage jobs to provide for deferred payment of System Development Charges to affected businesses, with the goal of effectively reducing System development Charges for such projects;

G. The Office of Planning and Development Review is directed to prepare and file an ordinance changing its name to the Bureau of Development Services, together with City Code amendments consistent with that change; and,

H. This resolution constitutes binding city policy and shall be filed as such in the Portland Policy Documents Repository.